Sunday, March 09, 2008

A local Newspaper really is a community rock

or should be. Telling the important goings on in the community, sharing the events and daily happenings of residents and local businesses. Sales. Movings. Deaths. Lectures. Events. City Hall or County Council meetings. The newspaper documents history of the community, of the town, of the city; documents the lives and achievements of those who live within.

Or at least that is what a newspaper should do. Our local newspaper was taken over several years ago by a woman and her minions who have shown nothing but disdain and contempt for our little "Adobe Disneyland."

A film has been made about the death of our paper. "Citizen McCaw." I had the chance to see the premier of the film at a "sold out" showing at the Arlington Theatre on Friday night. It really is a terrific movie; a must see for every Santa Barbarian. Actually, a must see for everyone, for if it can happen here, it can happen everywhere. A cautionary tale of how greed, avarice and the viewing of a "public utility" as a "personal playground" will ultimately damage a community, a society, a democracy.

The film chronicles events since July 2006, when editor Jerry Roberts and five of his colleagues quit the Santa Barbara News-Press, citing owner and Co-publisher Wendy McCaw's abandonment of journalistic ethics, which McCaw denied. Since then, McCaw and dozens of her former staffers have been engaged in a fierce clash of wills that raises important national questions of journalistic ethics and media ownership. - Citizen McCaw